Speaker and author Barry Spilchuk writes that he has never met Pete Rose, the famous baseball player, but he taught Barry something so valuable that it changed his life.

Pete was being interviewed in spring training the year he was about to break Ty Cobb’s all time hits record.

One reporter blurted out, “Pete, you only need 78 hits to break the record. How many at-bats do you think you’ll need to get the 78 hits?” Without hesitation, Pete just stared at the reporter and very matter-of-factly said, “78.” The reporter yelled back, “Ah, come on Pete, you don’t expect to get 78 hits in 78 at-bats do you?”

Mr. Rose calmly shared his philosophy with the throngs of reporters who were anxiously awaiting his reply to this seemingly boastful claim. “Every time I step up to the plate, I expect to get a hit! If I don’t expect to get a hit, I have no right to step in the batter’s box in the first place!” “If I go up hoping to get a hit,” he continued, “then I probably don’t have a prayer to get a hit. It is a positive expectation that has gotten me all of the hits in the first place.”

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Register for a Free Winner’s Lunch and Learn Webinar on February 9 at 12:00 Noon EST to celebrate Expect Success month. 

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Imagine you were at the plate in a baseball game that could decide a championship. It is the bottom of the ninth and your team is down one run. There are two outs with a runner on second.

Do you step to the plate praying that the pitcher walks you? 

Or would you have Pete Rose’s positive expectation and step to the plate telling yourself “I was made for this moment. That ball is going outta this park.” 

Personal Applications 

In a like manner, you should go to work with the attitude that you will make it a successful day and that you will be able to handle whatever blocks or problems come your way. Never go to work expecting to get into an argument with someone or expecting to have crises blow your day away. Why? Because expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It is important to rid yourself of negative thoughts such as: “There is no way I’ll get that project done on time,” or “I know I won’t make quota.”

I’ve never seen a study, but I’d like to see figures on the hours of precious time that is wasted each day because of negative attitudes and discouragement. I’ll bet it is at least 2 hours–that’s nearly 1/3 of your focused working time. Therefore, to use the power of positive expectation to create a winning lifestyle, rid yourself of a pessimistic attitude.

One way to use the power of positive expectation to make your life better,  is to use the language of winners when you wake up in the morning. As you get out of bed, don’t say, “There is no way I’ll get that project done on time.” Instead, say, “I will get sections X and Y finished today.” Don’t say, “I know I won’t make quota.” Tell yourself , “Today I’ll make a sale and I’ll be on my way to making quota.”

By using this simple strategy of positive self-talk, you’ll be filled with determination to succeed, thus filling your mind and body with energy.  You’ll find it easy to get started on the pile of paperwork related to your project that is due next week or pick up the phone and make that first sales call for the day. Your mind will be generating creative ideas and solutions for project or sales challenges.

Charismatic leaders in today’s organizations know that they can use  the positive expectation principles to inspire their employees who may be overwhelmed with their workload or pressed for more sales.

I have provided a positive expectation tip sheet for managers to use in their next meeting. Just to go Manager’s Meeting Toolbox to download it. 

Share your Positive Expectation Story:

Tell your success story and share your positive expectation comments below. You will inspire others to aim high and go for their goals with the “I Expect Success” attitude.

Register for a Free Winner’s Lunch and Learn Webinar on February 9 at 12:00 Noon EST to celebrate Expect Success month. 

Interesting links: 

Mind Perks 

Advanced Life Skills

Positive Self-Talk

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In your performance review, when your manager tells you to work on your weaknesses–perhaps you don’t show enough empathy–that manager is distracting you and adding to your potential failure.

Buckingham and Clifton make the point that your time is much better spent improving your strengths. 

Buckingham and Clifton identified 34 different strength themes. Once you take the assessment and have your strengths identified, you begin to understand your behaviors that people observe about you that may be hidden from your own eyes.

 My strengths are:  

#1 Focus – This trait makes it imperative for me to have a clear focus every day. I need to know where I am going and what I am going to accomplish. At the end of the day, I need to be able to check several things off the list. 

#2 Achiever – This trait gives me unending drive and energy. Fortunately or unfortunately, it permits me to work long hours without burning out. 

#3 Significance – This trait is a little unsettling to me. Significance means I need be significant in the eyes of other people. I need to be recognized and heard. The unsettling part is the need to be validated by others. 

#4 Responsibility – Every world of the Strengths description fit me. This trait forces me to take psychological ownership for anything I commit to and whether large or small, I feel emotionally bound to follow through to completion. My good name depends on it. 

#5 Learner – This one surprised me but as I looked at my career and the satisfaction I get from researching, I understood myself better. 

I teach a program that combines 4-quadrant personalities with the Strengths Finder themes. The program gives you deep insight into your behaviors and the behaviors of those you work with. 

View the Depuzzler and Strengths Finder Program on Karla’s Web site.

 Have you taken the Strengths Finder? If so, what is your experience with it. Leave your comments below.

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Is your executive leadership team wondering how to increase workplace productivity?

There is growing research that giving and happiness is related to productivity in the workplace.  When people give generously of their time or personal resources, they experience personal satisfaction and calm plus a sense of joy. This all translates into happiness at work. 

 When people are satisfied and are feeling happy, they concentrate with greater intensity on their work, find more creative solutions and bottom line, get more done. 

 Charismatic leaders model generous giving for their employees and create a more productive environment.  Employees see the example and emulate the behaviors. 

Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says that if employees see you giving, they will see you as a leader and they will want to follow you. (See www.KarlaBrandau.com/GiveUnselfishly.)

Brooks’ research finds that you can certainly make it a habit to give to non-profits and charitable causes in the community and invite your employees to do the same. This gives you and your organization greater visibility in the community and earns you more employee loyalty.  

 In a post from Science Now, social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, writes that there is a strong correlation between spending and happiness. People were happier when they spent money on others, rather than indulging themselves in pleasurable activities. Dunn states that “the effects of altruistic spending are probably akin to those of exercise.” And like exercise, giving needs to be done on a regular basis to have long term effects.

Giving part of your paycheck to another individual for a good reason gives you an emotional burst of happiness, but so does just plain and simple service. Forgetting your own self-serving goals for a few minutes and paying it forward by giving a gift of time to a colleague or co-worker or merely listening to an employee is a sure-fire way to make you a happier person.

Happy people work better with others, are more fun to be around, give better customer service, and give co-workers the benefit of a doubt when misunderstandings occur.

Happy people are more creative when fixing problems and reducing mountains of challenges to molehills of reality.

Happy people have more energy and are more optimistic and motivated. They make fewer mistakes and better decisions.

Get your leadership team together and make a resolution that tomorrow – not next week or next month – you will model for your employees the giving of service. As they follow the charismatic leaders in the organization, your employees will be happier and more productive.

In Paul Krugman’s (professor of economics at Princepton University) words, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it is almost everything.”

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Has the performance review become a routine time waster? Are your performance reviews missing the mark of raising productivity and building loyalty? Do your performance reviews usually turn out negative? Would you like to improve the process?

Effective leadership starts when you teach your managers that performance reviews should be a conscious effort every day of the year. Employees need constant and relevant feed back weekly, if not daily, that keeps them going in the right direction. If your managers can create a coaching environment through their interactions with employees, giving honest, candid feedback on performance on a regular basis, there will be no surprises at performance review time.

No surprises decreases the stress felt on both sides. 

Straight forward conversations make it possible for employees to enter the conversation expressing their honest feelings and opinions. Frank discussions should include listening and acknowledging both person’s viewpoint, exploring alternatives, and negotiating a pathway forward.

Candid conversations throughout the year take the sting out of the sandwich technique: “I really like you. You did this lousy and don’t do it again.” “I really like you.” What do employees remember? What you categorized as lousy. Managers confuse employees when they give them a good face-to-face review (because they lack the communication skills to be candid), but note less than stellar performance in the written record.  

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Wow! As charismatic leaders, what does this mean? There are many techniques, but the one I would like to focus on today is the art of saying “Thank you.” 

Why is it so hard to compliment another person and acknowledge a job well done? Here are two possible reasons:

1. Urgency. I have been caught in the trap of urgency. I am in too much of a hurry. I check off the project and move on to the next without properly thanking those who made the project a success.

2. Ego. Sometimes my ego gets in the way. In some deep recess of my brain, I’m thinking, “They are better than I am” and I downplay their success. 

One of the hardest lessons leaders have to learn is to stop the incessant checking off of tasks and  let another person shine by giving them appreciation and an appropriate thank you.  Your thank you can be as simple as:

• Thanks for sharing your insights in the meeting today. They were valuable.
• I appreciate the way you handled that customer. You let them vent appropriately and then solved their problem quickly.
• The extra effort you gave on the ad hoc committee was outstanding. Thank you for giving us discretionary effort. 

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Charismatic leaders know there are dramatic differences between tangible and intangible assets: 

• Tangible products and goods are constant and relatively motionless; people are unique, flexible and constantly changing.
• The performance of products is predictable; the performance of people is unpredictable and often inconsistent.
• Products are passive and must be acted upon;  motivated people become proactive and innovative.
• Goods depreciate  according to a fixed schedule; products become obsolete. However, the value people add to the organization increases with their length of service.
• Products and assets don’t walk away. People do.

To be a charismatic leader, I recommend focusing your energy on:

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Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman, IBM Corporation, stated in a recent publication from IBM entitled Capitalizing on Complexity, “events, threats, and opportunities aren’t just coming at us faster or with less predictability, they are converging and influencing each other to create entirely unique situations. These first-of-their kind developments require unprecedented degrees of creativity — which has become a more important leadership quality than attributes like management discipline, rigor, or operational acumen.” Palmisano goes on to state that in light of the world’s increasing complexity, creativity is the single most important leadership competency needed.

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Do you feel behind already? Is your organization struggling to keep up with the changing fluctuations of the economic environment, battling to learn new ways of marketing, working to adjust to the new social contract between employees and employers?

To move confidently into the future you need a vision, not just for the innovation of new products and services, or for new ways of marketing on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter but for new, more transparent ways to rebuild trust with your employees. During the past two years, most organizations have been tainted by broken trust between employers and employees.

The future you want to live in starts with a vision of superior ways to operate and that vision started in the discussion of yesterday where seeds of future achievement were planted in sometimes fuzzy recesses of deep thought.

As the seed of idea sprouts through dialog with colleagues and employees, all systems and processes are reevaluated and an ideal future is revealed.

This ideal future, this vision, takes possession of your entire soul and moves you into action. As you articulate your vision of future accomplishments to your employees, your vision becomes a shared vision. This shared vision serves as a guide for the future where you live with self-assurance.

Can you make this work in your life? Can you make it work today?

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